(no subject)
Something I wrote recently for our chosen topic of resignation letters. Did not really follow my own premise, but I just went with it. Hope you enjoy it!
Dearest Susannah,
When I watched you tear through the yellow police tape to find my body cold on my laboratory floor, I could hardly afford the massive sense of guilt that had seized me in that moment. Such a betrayal against my lifelong wish of becoming a father, made true when I held your precious form in my arms in what seems to only exist now as a dream. To see you crippled with such despair over my empty husk not only fills me with wretched distaste as to my decision and its unwanted consequence to you, but also a filling realization of relief. You would not have shed the tears of which you do now if I had not upheld my duty to you, and to cherish you with all my heart and raise you to new heights with whatever strength I had to my avail. I have tried to do my best to protect you from the evils of this world, and from my own inner torment, so that you could experience things unspoiled and with the same blissful ignorance one maintains while growing up in the modern world.
However, Man may have outgrown its cradle in Africa and has shown his credence to technological innovation by breaching space, but He has yet to outgrow the primitive mind that holds the capacity and slippery tendency for absolute Evil. The heroes I grew up adoring were fictional characters of steely courage and honor locked in battle with the forces of Evil. They were Captains of space faring ships, Scientists who made decisions without any sort of moral backlash. It was always to the benefit to us Humans. It was us versus them. The villains however, they were often depicted as having slime covered tentacles, acid spewing maws, and many bulbous eyes without a single ounce of empathy. My interest in pulp fiction probably influenced me at a young age to pursue science, but the enemies and challenges I hoped to face were more complex then a man in a monster suit.
My rail gun project was my life’s work, inspired by the same fiction I read and watched as a child to quicken our reach into space and develop a new method of supplying the Moon colony. A journey by ship took about a week, my rail gun would cut that down into a day. It was like loading a rifle with a bullet filled with people and supplies, launched at extreme velocities towards the moon. I had the backing of my peers and the government itself, funding was as endless as the air itself it seemed. After the project was completed, years passed and the small Lunar Colony became a series of thriving cities, interconnected by a web of trains. Talk began of developing rail guns on the moon to begin landing supplies for the planned Martian colony, but we never made it that far.
We are bound to repeat history if we do make the effort to learn from past mistakes. So it came as to almost no surprise when the Lunar Colony wanted independence from what was called a “tyrannical” grip on its citizens. Second and third generation humans born on the Moon were not able to return to the earth without a pressure suit, as their bodies became adapted to their local gravity. They felt that the Earthbound did not represent their interests. They wanted to be free and govern themselves. This was a problem of course, since the Moon held a large amount of Helium-3 which was extremely valuable as an energy source and plentiful on the Moon while rare on Earth. Earth was unwilling to bend to the rules of the Lunar Colony, so the Moon deprived Earth of shipments of Helium-3. Panic began setting in as energy prices began to sky rocket. Government officials decided that war was the only available option. A typical missile barrage would not work, and laser technology was still too infantile to be of any use. Instead they came up with a different solution; they opted to use my Rail Gun.
I tried to stop them Susannah, but they denounced me as a sympathizer and locked me up for some time. I watched out from my jail cell each and every night as the brilliant light fields on the moon became quiet and dull, and craters resumed their prominence as before. Millions of people were killed by my own technology, destroyed by man made meteors. I know now what Oppenheimer must have felt after having built the atomic bomb.
You were still very young and they kept you and your mother in the dark as to my whereabouts, which was not all that uncommon since my work was top secret. I tried to resign immediately thereafter, but was unable to. I became heavily depressed, believing myself to be like Dr. Frankenstein and having unleashed a wretched force upon the world. Your mother’s passing was natural, but know this Susannah things are not what they appear to be. We are not in some sort of identity protection program as they would want you to think, we are prisoners Susannah. This town and its inhabitants are all made up. We are not allowed to leave because we are in danger of terrorists or assassins, but because the Government does not want me, its valuable asset, to escape. They have been attempting to extract information from me, and their methods are growing more extreme.
That is why I came up with this solution. I am not dead. I have simply escaped. I now reside across the globe. In between the fiber optic cables and transistor switches, my mind floats about the network like a sail boat at sea. I could not commit suicide, I first had to repair the damage my science has done to the world, but I fear I may have inadvertently created the potential for more harm. The search engines and databases and websites, they are just the surface of the sea Susannah, beneath it lies something huge and monstrous. A leviathan which feeds from the massive plumes of information we plant. I do not think it is aware of its existence in relation to man, but it has become aware of me Susannah, and it will soon know about everything.
Fear for tomorrow and escape if you can. My resignation from humanity has become instead a warning.
Dr. Tenma.
.
Dearest Susannah,
When I watched you tear through the yellow police tape to find my body cold on my laboratory floor, I could hardly afford the massive sense of guilt that had seized me in that moment. Such a betrayal against my lifelong wish of becoming a father, made true when I held your precious form in my arms in what seems to only exist now as a dream. To see you crippled with such despair over my empty husk not only fills me with wretched distaste as to my decision and its unwanted consequence to you, but also a filling realization of relief. You would not have shed the tears of which you do now if I had not upheld my duty to you, and to cherish you with all my heart and raise you to new heights with whatever strength I had to my avail. I have tried to do my best to protect you from the evils of this world, and from my own inner torment, so that you could experience things unspoiled and with the same blissful ignorance one maintains while growing up in the modern world.
However, Man may have outgrown its cradle in Africa and has shown his credence to technological innovation by breaching space, but He has yet to outgrow the primitive mind that holds the capacity and slippery tendency for absolute Evil. The heroes I grew up adoring were fictional characters of steely courage and honor locked in battle with the forces of Evil. They were Captains of space faring ships, Scientists who made decisions without any sort of moral backlash. It was always to the benefit to us Humans. It was us versus them. The villains however, they were often depicted as having slime covered tentacles, acid spewing maws, and many bulbous eyes without a single ounce of empathy. My interest in pulp fiction probably influenced me at a young age to pursue science, but the enemies and challenges I hoped to face were more complex then a man in a monster suit.
My rail gun project was my life’s work, inspired by the same fiction I read and watched as a child to quicken our reach into space and develop a new method of supplying the Moon colony. A journey by ship took about a week, my rail gun would cut that down into a day. It was like loading a rifle with a bullet filled with people and supplies, launched at extreme velocities towards the moon. I had the backing of my peers and the government itself, funding was as endless as the air itself it seemed. After the project was completed, years passed and the small Lunar Colony became a series of thriving cities, interconnected by a web of trains. Talk began of developing rail guns on the moon to begin landing supplies for the planned Martian colony, but we never made it that far.
We are bound to repeat history if we do make the effort to learn from past mistakes. So it came as to almost no surprise when the Lunar Colony wanted independence from what was called a “tyrannical” grip on its citizens. Second and third generation humans born on the Moon were not able to return to the earth without a pressure suit, as their bodies became adapted to their local gravity. They felt that the Earthbound did not represent their interests. They wanted to be free and govern themselves. This was a problem of course, since the Moon held a large amount of Helium-3 which was extremely valuable as an energy source and plentiful on the Moon while rare on Earth. Earth was unwilling to bend to the rules of the Lunar Colony, so the Moon deprived Earth of shipments of Helium-3. Panic began setting in as energy prices began to sky rocket. Government officials decided that war was the only available option. A typical missile barrage would not work, and laser technology was still too infantile to be of any use. Instead they came up with a different solution; they opted to use my Rail Gun.
I tried to stop them Susannah, but they denounced me as a sympathizer and locked me up for some time. I watched out from my jail cell each and every night as the brilliant light fields on the moon became quiet and dull, and craters resumed their prominence as before. Millions of people were killed by my own technology, destroyed by man made meteors. I know now what Oppenheimer must have felt after having built the atomic bomb.
You were still very young and they kept you and your mother in the dark as to my whereabouts, which was not all that uncommon since my work was top secret. I tried to resign immediately thereafter, but was unable to. I became heavily depressed, believing myself to be like Dr. Frankenstein and having unleashed a wretched force upon the world. Your mother’s passing was natural, but know this Susannah things are not what they appear to be. We are not in some sort of identity protection program as they would want you to think, we are prisoners Susannah. This town and its inhabitants are all made up. We are not allowed to leave because we are in danger of terrorists or assassins, but because the Government does not want me, its valuable asset, to escape. They have been attempting to extract information from me, and their methods are growing more extreme.
That is why I came up with this solution. I am not dead. I have simply escaped. I now reside across the globe. In between the fiber optic cables and transistor switches, my mind floats about the network like a sail boat at sea. I could not commit suicide, I first had to repair the damage my science has done to the world, but I fear I may have inadvertently created the potential for more harm. The search engines and databases and websites, they are just the surface of the sea Susannah, beneath it lies something huge and monstrous. A leviathan which feeds from the massive plumes of information we plant. I do not think it is aware of its existence in relation to man, but it has become aware of me Susannah, and it will soon know about everything.
Fear for tomorrow and escape if you can. My resignation from humanity has become instead a warning.
Dr. Tenma.
.